This paper studies the effect of government-backed partial credit guarantees on firms' performance. These guarantees are automatically granted to firms without enough collateral in order to lift their credit constraints. We put together a panel, covering the period 1997-2007, that combines data...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Chilean Supplier Development Program, aimed at improving and stabilizing the commercial linkages between small and medium-sized suppliers and their large firm customers, during the period 2003-2008. Applying propensity score matching and...

This paper studies the effect of government-backed partial credit guarantees on firms’ performance in Colombia. These guarantees are automatically granted by the National Guarantee Fund (NGF) to firms without enough collateral to lift their credit constraints. We put together a panel of firms...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Chilean Supplier Development Program, aimed at improving and stabilizing the commercial linkages between small and medium-sized suppliers and their large firm customers, during the period 2003–2008. We use the panel structure of our dataset to control for...

This paper revisits economic growth in Colombia using the growth diagnostics methodology proposed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco (2005), to identify the most binding constraints for economic growth and the policies that, if implemented, can have the largest positive impact. To rank public...

The paper uses microeconomic data to characterize entrepreneurs by income group and selected household, individual and business characteristics, finding that entrepreneurship is rare but more frequent in the upper class than the middle or lower classes. Middle-class entrepreneurs are, on...

This paper describes private actors’ involvement in Colombia’s policymaking process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on...

This paper uses a yearly dataset of plant-level investment in Colombian firms during the period 1997 to 2007 to assess the impact of a tax incentive for firms that invest in fixed assets implemented in 2004. A positive and statistically significant correlation is found between the boom observed...

This paper explores the links between labor formality, access to credit and firm performance in Colombia using Annual Manufacturing Survey data for the period 2000-2009. A significant though small relationship is found between access to credit and informality. The results suggest that a 10...

Credit has been found to be a catalyst for economic growth, as it spurs investment, enhances productivity, allows costs to be spread out over time, improves resource allocation, and enables investors to cope better with macroeconomic volatility. Most studies focus on the relationship between...